s1mple is back to playing Valorant after his surprise ban

Even though Counter-Strike: Global Offensive star Sasha “s1mple” Kostyliev believes Valorant is “too simple,” he wasn’t looking to get banned from the game entirely. But that’s exactly what happened. 

s1mple didn’t share the reason behind the surprise ban, and the CSGO AWPer might not even know why it happened himself. He joked with Valorant pro Adil “ScreaM” Benrlitom that it was due to him being “just too good” and was possibly reported for cheating due to his incredible skills. 

On March 27, s1mple logged into Valorant to find that he couldn’t queue up for another match. That was after he reached Immortal, the game’s second-highest rank. s1mple was clearly shocked at the time, tweeting that he’s “not a cheater.” He also didn’t seem to know when the ban would end. 

Valorant esports strategist Riley Yurk saw s1mple’s frustration on social media and reached out. Soon after, s1mple was unbanned from Riot’s tactical shooter. It appeared he may have been wrongly banned for toxicity in voice chat, but it’s still not entirely clear what happened to block s1mple from competing.

CSGO fans are most likely unhappy that s1mple will be able to play Valorant again. A lot of top CSGO pros have already made the switch to the newer FPS. But while s1mple would most likely make “millions of dollars a year” playing Valorant, he recently called the game “too simple” and voiced frustrations with its weapons. So he most likely isn’t making a complete switch any time soon.  

How many hours does s1mple have on CSGO?

The Ukranian CSGO player had over 16,000 hours in the game as of February 2020. He hasn’t slowed down since. He streams about three to four hours every single day, and practices more beyond that.